Argentina: Tomas Cubelli starts as one of four changes for All Blacks clash in Waikato

Dylan Coetzee

©Sebastien Muylaert/MAXPPP - Tomas CUBELLI of Argentine during the Autumn Nations Series match between France and Argentine at Stade de France, in Paris, France. 06.11.2021

Scrum-half Tomas Cubelli headlines four changes made by head coach Michael Cheika to the Los Pumas side for their second Test against the All Blacks in Hamilton on Saturday.

Santiago Carreras maintains his spot at fly-half after another strong performance in last week’s victory over New Zealand in Christchurch. At the same time, the centre pairing of Matias Orlando and Matias Moroni continue their partnership after impressing in Round Three of the Rugby Championship.

Cordero starts on the wing

Meanwhile, Santiago Cordero is promoted from the bench and starts on the left wing alongside the red-hot Emiliano Boffelli and Juan Cruz Mallia in a tweaked back three.

In the forwards, Julian Montoya leads the team from hooker and is joined by Thomas Gallo and Joel Sclavi in an unchanged front-row. Guido Petti comes in to start alongside Tomas Lavanini in the second-row as Matias Alemanno drops to the bench.

24-year-old Santiago Grondona is preferred at flank to Juan Martin Gonzalez, who was outstanding last time out, and is joined by the experienced Pablo Matera and Marcos Kremer in the loose trio.

On the bench, Santiago Socino, Mayco Vivas and Eduardo Bello make up the front-row replacements for Cheika. The remaining forward options are Alemanno and Gonzalez.

Scrum-half Gonzalo Bertranou is dropped to the bench and is joined by Benjamin Urdapilleta and Lucio Cinti as backline replacements for Argentina.

Not the favourites

Cheika refused for his side to be labelled as favourites for the clash and insisted that their main focus is quality of performance rather than being purely result-driven.

“Mate, we’re in New Zealand, like, playing against New Zealand,” he said.

“I know you guys like to manoeuvre the story around but we’re about as underdog as you get. The guys that need to believe we can do it is us.

“We’ve got no expectations on ourselves except for the quality of our play. As in life, good things happen when you work hard and you’re good at your craft.”

The coach explained his changes, owing some of them to strong training performances and experimentation with different combinations.

“There were different reasons for all of them, some relating to the competition that we’re having inside of the team and we’re trying to reward training performance as well,” he added.

“And also just some things about how we want the team to set up this week with different combinations. It’s been a good week in training and it’s getting harder to pick the team every week.”

Argentina: 15 Juan Cruz Mallia, 14 Emiliano Boffelli, 13 Matias Moroni, 12 Matias Orlando, 11 Santiago Cordero, 10 Santiago Carreras, 9 Tomas Cubelli, 8 Pablo Matera, 7 Marcos Kremer, 6 Santiago Grondona, 5 Tomas Lavanini, 4 Guido Petti, 3 Joel Sclavi, 2 Julian Montoya (c), 1 Thomas Gallo
Replacements: 16 Santiago Socino, 17 Mayco Vivas, 18 Eduardo Bello, 19 Matias Alemanno, 20 Juan Martin Gonzalez, 21 Gonzalo Bertranou, 22 Benjamin Urdapilleta, 23 Lucio Cinti

Date: Saturday, September 3
Venue: FMG Stadium, Hamilton
Kick-off: 19:05 local (08:05 BST, 07:05 GMT)
Referee: Nic Berry (Australia)
Assistant Referees: Nika Amashukeli (Georgia), Jordan Way (Australia)
TMO: Brian MacNeice (Ireland)

READ MORE: All Blacks: Beauden Barrett and Brodie Retallick on bench as unchanged starting XV named to face Argentina